


The Parallels of Love

by Thousand_Ribbons (Meridians_of_Madness)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Healing Magic, Humiliation, M/M, Rape, Reverse Omens, Violence, fantasy libraries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:33:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22461169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meridians_of_Madness/pseuds/Thousand_Ribbons
Summary: The demon Aziraphale has a tremendously bad encounter with a duke of Hell, the angel Crowley makes an offer.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 202





	The Parallels of Love

“Hello, angel.”

Aziraphale stiffened, wanted to count to ten, realized he did not have the time to count to ten, and rolled his eyes instead before turning around, dipping into a deep bow as he did so.

“Duke Medoc,” he said. “What an honor.”

“Do you really think so?”

Aziraphale gave him a slight sick smile. Of course he didn't, but they both knew that a duke of Hell was due certain courtesies.

As always, Medoc reminded him uncomfortably of Crowley. They were both tall and slat-thin, though Medoc had more flesh to him. The duke was a little softer and quite a bit younger in the face. So long as no one caught sight of his side to side black eyes, button-round like the hare he truly was, he passed very well for a rather charming young man. He was dark-haired with a sweet smile, and the rumor went he had actually fucked his predecessor Belphagor to death before taking his place.

“You've not been home in a while,” Medoc said, as if they were just passing the time. “Why is that?”

“Earth keeps me busy,” Aziraphale said as steadily as he could. “My reports are all in order, you can check them if you-”

Medoc's hand, tipped with thick opaque black nails, shot out and snagged Aziraphale's arm, pulling him close as a minor miracle shielded them from the gaze of the busy Londoners streaming to either side of them.

“I don't want your blessed reports,” Medoc hissed, and Aziraphale refused to give him the pleasure of flinching.

“I can imagine what you want, your grace,” he said, keeping the fury out of his voice. He knew that he had failed when Medoc grinned and let him go.

 _Such_ a charming young man, Aziraphale thought acidly.

“If you already know, then...”

He did. It rose off of Medoc like a shimmer of summer heat, made the humans passing by glance at each other with new speculation. Some of them, Aziraphale was sure, would be unwisely going home with unwise partners tonight, profaning sacred vows made in their hearts and to others, throwing themselves on altars only to find themselves unworthy. Not that Aziraphale knew anything about that.

“Of course,” he bit out. “This way.”

-

Aziraphale fed the anger inside himself like a fire, offering it little slivers of indignity and humiliation so that it would keep him warm. He gave it the way Medoc shoved him into an alley, making him stumble. He fed it the feel of the brick under his hands and the way Medoc came close, nuzzling the fine hair at the nape of his neck. He gave it the utterly ridiculous things Medoc was saying to him.

“Come home,” Medoc whispered in his ear. “Come home. I'll fuck you over a silk cushion, and force an incubus to suck your cock when I do it. I'll give you a dozen souls to tend to your every waking desire, I will give you things you couldn't possibly have on Earth, only come _home_ with me...”

 _Dear Satan, he hasn't updated that offer since the fifteenth century,_ Aziraphale thought wearily, his eyes closed as Medoc's fingers knotted in his hair. For all his slenderness, Medoc was strong, and every thrust threatened to smash him against the wall if he didn't pay attention.

He paid attention to the brick in front of him, to the sound of the London traffic beyond the alley, to the fact that he would need to get a manicure appointment sooner rather than later, because the bricks were Hell- so to speak- on his nails.

He paid less attention to the way his body shook under Medoc's assault, the tension sending an ache up his arms, to the back of his neck and down his back. He did not care about the way Medoc's hands roved his body insistently and greedily, tugging at his clothes in a fitful fashion as if trying to search for some trace of bare flesh or some gap in the tweed and cotton that he could exploit. Once or twice, there was the rough purr of a ripping seam, but the layers that Aziraphale wore protected his skin nicely.

He did not think at all about the way he was stretched over Medoc's cock, how if he looked back in a certain way, it wouldn't be a handsome young man fucking him at all. Instead, it would be a dark scarred monstrosity with matted fur, chewed ears and an herbivore's mouth that did not quite close over his predator's teeth.

He did not think about how much he hated this, that if he could get away with it, there would be a deep deep grave for Medoc in the Roman mines in Derbyshire, where he could scream for the rest of the time and never be found.

He did not think about the way his poor stupid cock was twitching at the fucking, and he did not allow himself to imagine it was another tall thin man-shaped thing in black doing the job, no matter how much easier it might have made things.

“ _Angel_ ,” Medoc purred. “Angel. Guardian of the Eastern Gate You still _look_ like an angel with all that fair hair and your pretty face. Precious, still so blessed _clean_ even after you've fallen. So beautiful...”

Aziraphale shuddered at that. He still hadn't learned better. Six thousand years and he had never learned to conceal that flinch. Medoc laughed softly.

“Would you like to cry to God, angel?” Medoc thrust into him harder. “Would you like to weep about where you've been?”

Aziraphale didn't rise to the bait. He did not look back at Medoc even though he knew that he twitched at the other demon's words, tightening around his cock, his entire body going hot with humiliation.

 _You do too,_ Aziraphale thought coldly. _We all do._

Finally, Medoc thrust into him one last time, his spend hot and stinging inside Aziraphale's body. Aziraphale hissed at the sharp sting matching the brutal scrape of Medoc's cock pulling out. He had been too proud to make himself ready, and he would suffer for it now.

Aziraphale did up his clothes, putting them into order as Medoc watched him.

 _Shut up,_ Aziraphale thought. _Just shut up. If I have to hear your foolish mouth open one more time..._

Right on cue, Medoc spoke up.

“I do love you, you know,” Medoc said quietly. “Best of everything on Earth and above it and below it as well. I have never loved anything as I have learned to love you...”

“No one _cares_ what you love, Medoc. For the love of _Satan,_ shut your damned mouth!”

The sound that Medoc made was so funny that Aziraphale couldn't help laughing, that laughter paired with a spike in the unsubtle sense of doom that never really left him.

“Do you know...” he managed to get out. “Do you know how utterly ridiculous you are, a _demon_ speaking about love as if you were some soppy little rent boy who hadn't the sense not to fuck his pimp?”

Suddenly it was much easier to see what Medoc really was. The air between them shuddered with terror, and Aziraphale laughed harder.

“Aziraphale...”

“Oh forgive me, that worked out rather well for you, didn't it? Belphagor died with his cock up your arse, and that's what you think love is now. Poor _darling,_ poor _thing._ Do you want someone to tell you it'll be all right, an angel to guard you while you sleep? Do you want-”

He didn't get to finish the line because Medoc shoved him against the brick so hard that the building shook, or, no, it was only his bones as Medoc pulled him back to do it again and again...

-

Aziraphale was still laughing to himself as he limped in through the loading dock doors of the Wollstonecraft-Shelley Library. It had been the Shelley Library for the first few years, but then someone thought it had been named after the wrong Shelley, and a great deal of huffing and a grand renaming followed, along with several portraits of a pale dark-haired woman with a glint of mischief in her eyes placed pointedly in the long halls and galleries. As a grudging concession to his contribution, a single small chalk drawing of the other Shelley was placed across from the men's restroom on the third floor.

He passed under the portrait of dear Mary- she had been, to both of them- painted after Italy, when she was staying with Mr and Mrs Hunt in Genoa, after all the shouting was over.

“Well, Mary, you knew it was a bastard of a life sometimes, didn't you?” he murmured on his way by, and he could imagine her laughter in the back of his head. It reminded him anyway to straighten up and stop limping, though there was nothing that he could do or indeed _wanted_ to do for the bruises on his face or his split lip. Hopefully those would be taken care of for him.

The ground floor of the library held a decent fiction section, a superb media archive, a few all-purpose rooms with state-of-the art audio and visual equipment for loan, and the circulation desk. Aziraphale walked into the circular central foyer area, drowned in light from an enormous circular skylight high above, and looked around.

“Bit sparse for a Thursday,” he commented, looking at the empty and echoing space.

“It's Sunday, demon.”

On the little pamphlets in the lobby, the ones inviting visitors to G _et to Know the Historic Wollstonecraft-Shelley Library!,_ one starred point proudly proclaimed that the library contained three floors full of books and other media designed to appeal to the diverse community it served. If one had eyes to see however, the angel Crowley's home was far taller than three floors, stretching up into the unaware London sky with galleries that crossed space and time in ways that were not altogether compliant with the current laws of reality.

With a genuine smile, Aziraphale looked up to see a narrow figure in black step out from the mezzanine some nine stories up, his sleek black wings flaring open to catch the light as he glided down.

“You really ought to have some praises singing when you do that,” Aziraphale said, his head tilted back to watch Crowley's descent. “Perhaps a parley of lutes, or a flourish of trumpets.”

“Pass on the trumpets. They might call down Mr. High and Mighty himself, and then were would we be?”

Crowley's snakeskin shoes had not quite touched the floor before he was striding over to Aziraphale, a frown on his face.

“Look at you. What happened? Did you decide to fight a leviathan again?”

“Again, the leviathan was not my fault, and no. This is demonic. Just another little tiff with the family.”

He allowed Crowley to take his face in his hands, turning it back and forth in the light to assess the damage.

“Sounds like the kind of family that only gets holiday cards and restraining orders,” Crowley muttered.

“As if you can talk.”

“Can and will, demon. Can and will,” Crowley said absently, and then he frowned. “Aziraphale, look at the _state_ of you.”

“Honestly, I came here so you could do a little more than _look,_ if it pleases you to do so,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley nodded, closing his eyes.

Crowley's fingertips where they touched Aziraphale's face grew pleasantly warm, then unpleasantly warm, and then scorchingly hot as the angel's healing surged through his corporation. Another angel or a human would feel something much kinder, but there wasn't a single angelic touch that was meant to be kind for a demon.

 _Still,_ thought Aziraphale, his eyes half-closed and his teeth clenched, _still for him, it would be worth it..._

Crowley's face in concentration was very beautiful to him, and in moments like this, the angel occupied, Aziraphale could look as he pleased, and he did please. Crowley had been a star-spinner in the old days, and then they had put a sword in his hands and made him a soldier. Crowley might have forgiven Heaven for that, but Aziraphale thought he never would, for turning those long and elegant hands to war and putting that wary stare in Crowley's golden eyes.

He kept his hair cut short these days, but it was getting shaggy again, a stray lock falling down over his forehead. Aziraphale resisted the urge to reach up and flip it back. The bridge between them was six thousand years old, and he had a good idea of what it might and might not bear.

Crowley went still, the healing heat ebbing for a moment as he realized what he was repairing. Then the heat surged again as Crowley healed him with a vengeance that was one of the most holy thing about this not very holy angel. When he was done, Aziraphale staggered a little, whole and healed, but exhausted.

“Demon...”

“Don't.”

_Don't look furious on my behalf. Don't ask me if I am all right because I most assuredly am not. Don't tell me you are sorry. Don't look like your heart might break._

Crowley picked through the options that were left to him.

“What're you up to tonight?” he said finally.

“I was heading to that little gallery opening out in Soho,” Aziraphale said, though he no longer had the eagerness for it he had a few hours ago. “Some very promising sin starting up there, I think, ambition, lust, gluttony, you know. The old classics.”

“Hm. And then?”

“Oh, perhaps a stroll through Hampstead Heath. It has been some little while since I inspired some illicit lust-”

 _At least an hour,_ his brain supplied helpfully.

“-and that always racks up the numbers for an easy win below-stairs.”

“And then-?”

“Oh for the love of Admah, Crowley,” Aziraphale said with irritation. “Just tell me what you _want_.”

“You safe and the bastard who did this to you hosed down with holy water,” Crowley said bluntly, and Aziraphale recoiled.

It was too much, and even if the angel had been patching him up from various scrapes for the last little eternity, it was too much by _far._

“ _But,_ I'll settle for you staying here.”

“Here?” Aziraphale cast a hand around the library. With its wide spaces, its elegant fusion of Victorian, modern and celestial design, and the wards set to keep out every demonic thing besides Aziraphale, it was the next best thing to Heaven. As far as Aziraphale was concerned, it was better, and he suspected that Crowley felt the same.

“Just going to add me to the collection?” he asked tartly. “Perhaps with a plaque like for your little meteorites and tektites? What would mine say, I wonder, _one demon, failed...”_

Crowley only gave him a level look.

“ _One guardian, who never stopped, no matter what they said. One demon, who did not fall so much as was pushed down. My-”_

Aziraphale could never match Crowley's speed, but he was fast enough. He reached forward and clapped his hand over Crowley's mouth, cutting off his words. Over his hand, Crowley's eyes were honey, soft and sweet and entirely by Aziraphale undeserved.

In that moment, in that single brave moment, Crowley had walked to the center of the bridge between them and leaned all his weight on it. Crowley might have been made for stars, but he had made himself for war; he knew what it was to test a thing to destruction and then, miraculously, to find something left afterward.

Aziraphale could not say the same for himself. They had tested him to destruction, and accordingly, he had been destroyed.

He let his hand fall from Crowley's face. Shook his head.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley,” he said softly, and he turned away to leave.

Crowley seized him by the shoulder and spun him back.

“Then _catch up,_ demon,” Crowley said, too close, suddenly far too close, and then there was a hard mouth on his, hands knotted in his coat.

Their first kiss burned with holy fire, and Aziraphale was sure, was dead certain, that the angel Crowley would burn too.

**Author's Note:**

> *Medoc is borrowed from "Sorrows and Sighs and Mickle Care" by Vitreous Humor. Then he was turned inside out like a sock.


End file.
